Yasiel Puig's sensational and divisive rookie season comes to an end

With their 9-0 win over the Dodgers in Game 6 of the NLCS on Friday, the St. Louis Cardinals advanced to the World Series and ended the sensational first season of The Yasiel Puig Show.

The Dodgers’ 22-year-old outfielder first made headlines in March, when his stunning spring training performance led some to suggest he deserved a spot on the club’s opening day roster despite his limited minor league experience. He catapulted from a curiosity to a full-blown phenomenon in June, when he helped spark the team’s turnaround with one of the best debut months in baseball history.

In 104 games in 2013, Puig hit .319 with a .391 on-base percentage and 19 home runs. He is very, very good.

And he makes mistakes. Plenty of them. He can be reckless on the basepaths and in pursuit of fly balls. In Friday’s game alone he twice airmailed the cutoff man to throw home in vain, allowing baserunners to advance. It’s a costly habit, just like showing up umpires.

He’ll have to learn better to become more valuable to the Dodgers. But make no mistake: He is already incredibly valuable to the Dodgers. None of his youthful mistakes and mishaps were nearly enough to outweigh what he brought to his club with his bat and his arm and his legs. In 2013, the Dodgers took the bad with the good, and there was so much good. The guy made a career’s worth of highlights in two-thirds of a season.

And here’s the main thing; He’s 22, younger than the average ballplayer in A-ball, and an age when many American college students make countless more dangerous mistakes without prompting so much as a sanctimonious raised eyebrow.

A little over a year ago, Puig was still working to defect from Cuba. The idea that he’s somehow disrespecting the game now after how much he risked for the opportunity to play it seems at best ill-considered, at worst flat-out ridiculous.

Yasiel Puig is young, rich, free and awesome at baseball. He absolutely should enjoy himself on the baseball field, just like so many fans enjoyed watching him all year.

Puig, with Bryce Harper, Mike Trout and Jose Fernandez, is part of the most promising new crop of remarkable young ballplayers to hit the Major League circuit in decades. And while he’s not currently celebrating the way the Cardinals and their fans are, he is something to be celebrated.

What we saw from Puig this season was spectacular. The only thing more exciting is the hope that there are somehow even better things to come.

Young Dodgers outfielder stole headlines with excellence and exuberance.

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